Henchmen (3 page)

“You can’t have her,” says Eve.  She’s got that look she gets just before things start exploding, like storm clouds brewing in her gray eyes.

The well-dressed man frowns slightly and makes a quintessentially Japanese grunt that can mean anything from approval to general disdain, depending on the circumstances.  Considering these circumstances, I’m leaning more toward disdain.  I’d like to learn to convey displeasure with a grunt.

“You can give her to us and get another dinner, or we can take her.”

Jacob jumps up, sniffing a fight on the air.  “You can take my dick, fuck nuts,” he growls. 

I’m not sure what that means, but I sense this will probably not go down well.  Since there aren’t a whole lot of viable defensive positions from the floor, I start get up, too.  If I can hold back Jacob and the well-dressed man, this situation might not go completely bonkers on us, and we can finish eating.

Before I’m all the way up, a knife is in our guest’s hand and heading toward the girl on the table.  He’s dropping into a kneeling position because the table is so low.  I don’t have time to stop the knife, so I choose to move the target.  I manage to kick the table a bit; just enough that the blade misses her face by an inch or so and embeds itself in the wood of the table.

Again, not a whole lot of good workable positions here.  He’s on one knee, trying to pull the knife out.  She’s stuck to the table and there may be more trouble headed our way.  With his usual panache Frank defuses the situation.

“Her hair is amazing, it would be a pity to get your blood all over it,” he whispers, his straight razor held right up to our guest’s throat.

“You don’t know what you’re doing.  You will all live to regret this,” the man says, straightening.  He bows slightly and backs out the door.

“Get her off there,” Eve says to me, “This could get ugly.”

Part of me wants to say something witty like “But I’m not done eating yet”, but I know it would go over about as well as that time my mom put rattlesnakes in her teacher’s desk at school.

Five extremely well-dressed, irate-looking gentlemen show up at our door. The one in the middle is holding a very blinged-out gun, pointed straight at Eve.

“Apologies again,” says the guy with the gun, “but we did warn you.”

“Last chance,” says Eve, calmly pouring more sake, “walk away, and I’ll forget all about this trespass.”  She hasn’t even bothered to get up yet.

The guy with the gun hisses.  “I will happily shoot you,
baishun
.”

If I had any doubts about what we were dealing with, they left when I looked at this dude.  His tie was off and his shirt was unbuttoned to his navel.  Normally, this implies a love of the disco era, but when I saw his chest was covered with tattoos, my heart sank.  I just wanted dinner. Now I’ve got a fight with the local Yakuza.  The leader glances at the unbuttoned one. His face isn’t easy to read, but I would say he doesn’t seem happy.

Eve has a similar unreadable face, which usually means she’s dropping all pretenses, and things are about to go nuclear.

Jacob is grinning from ear to ear, spoiling for a fight.

Eve calmly rises to her feet and says “Fire away, if you think it will help.”

The guy’s eyes get big as she stands up and he mutters something about
kaiju
.  She stares him down, but he refuses to budge.  His ego is on the line. If his companions went back to their mutual friends and told them a woman stopped him, he’d never hear the end of it.  You can see in his eyes that he’s made the decision.

He fires four rounds from his gun, and every single one of them hits her in the chest.  Eve staggers back, the girl on the table screams, and our gunman’s buddies laugh out loud.  I reach down and grab another piece of sushi, since it’s obvious I won’t get to finish my dinner.

Eve’s dress has four holes in it, which has got to be a wicked pisser since she paid so damn much for it.  The laughter slowly subsides when they realize she’s still standing.  You always hear guys talking about how tough they are, and how they took a bullet and still managed to slaughter the other guy, but it’s all bull: you get shot, especially with a large enough round, and your ass is going down.  Deep down, everyone knows this, even if they don’t like to admit it to themselves.  And yet, here’s this blonde woman still standing.

Eve puts a finger through one of the holes in her dress and curses under her breath.  When she looks up her face is hard.  The guy with the gun shoots her twice more – like he’s thinking the first four rounds were somehow defective, and the next two will magically stop this tall blonde woman when the others wouldn’t.  Eve staggers back a bit, but looks up and meets his eyes.  He unloads the rest of the magazine into her.

When she hears the click of the empty gun Eve smiles, steps out of her shoes, and launches herself at the guys in the doorway.

The guy with the gun and the older guy are smart enough to move out the way, but the rest go down like bowling pins.  Eve stands up, holding one of the guys by the throat. She squeezes, looks at him briefly, and then chucks him down the hall like he’s weightless.  Bending down slightly Eve grabs the edge of the table, tells Jacob to catch, and casually flips it up.  To his credit, Jacob manages to catch the table.

The guy with the unbuttoned shirt has dropped his gun, but he still smells dangerous.  There’s a dancer’s quality to his movements, and his face is completely unconcerned.  He’s got the look of a guy that’s been in lots of fights before and walked away unscathed.  His eyes say he’s looking forward to doing it again.  He’s the type that’s learned to not rely on a weapon, so when the gun goes away it’s an inconvenience to him, but not the end of the world.

Frank takes a lightning-quick swipe of his razor at the button-less wonder.  A flicker of movement and blur of motion, and I expect to see the normal spray of red, but Disco Inferno is faster than anyone expected. He twitches back, casually watches the blade swing by, and flashes out a kick that sends Frank falling back.

Someone’s been keeping up with his Karate lessons.

The old guy is between me and Karate man.  I know I shouldn’t kick an old guy, but he’s in the way and I’m hangry.  Plus, he’s a dick.  I kick the leader in the side of the knee.  As he stumbles toward me I catch him with my right hand, pull his head back and slam a half-fist into his throat.  He’s an older man, but he’s already proven he carries at least one knife and is willing to stab a helpless woman in the face, so I’m not going to play around with him.  As he staggers, I push him into Shirtless, and they both tumble through the paper wall.  To his credit, the tatted-up Yak doesn’t waste time feeling hurt, just springs to his feet like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“Jean, get her off of there!” I yell pointing at the girl attached to the table.  I need Jacob in the fight, and he’s holding the table up with one hand and trying to unhook her with the other.  Jean fights with the clasps. The girl is struggling, which isn’t helping things.

“Calm the fuck down!  He’s trying to get you out and you are not helping!” I yell as I notice Jacob pull his gun out.  Eve is somewhere in the hall crushing skulls.  Jacob starts firing and things ramp up quickly.

“Jesus, Jean,” I yell, “the cuffs are just held in place with carabiners.  Just unhook them.”  I swear some people just have no experience with strapping women to tables.  What is this country coming to?

Disco Inferno notices me and throws a punch.  Damn, he’s fast.  I barely manage to block it and the second punch is coming my way.  Dodge it, and there’s a thrust kick coming in.  Slip past and barely catch that before he tries to chop me in the philtrum.  I turn my head just in time to avoid the major damage, and catch the chop in the side of the head.  Not pleasant, but better than the alternative.  I manage to throw and land a punch to his head, and he staggers slightly.

Jean has finally gotten the girl free, and she’s working on getting the leather cuffs off while Jean checks Frank’s ribs. 

Here’s the thing about real fighting: Someone takes a solid blow in a sensitive area, and they’re going down for a bit.  In movies, someone takes a knife to the lungs and keeps on fighting like it’s nothing.  In MMA someone can take a serious blow and keep on fighting, but they’re professional athletes, and you can see solid blows take their toll even on professional fighters.  A solid kick right into the middle of the ribs by a trained fighter can push your ribs into your lungs, which usually causes a severe case of not being able to breathe.  Frank will be okay, but he’s out of it for a bit.

A knife stabs through the wall next to Jean and slides down, razor sharp and shining.  The fifth guy has reappeared.  Apparently, he was smart enough to think outside the box a bit.  As Americans, we’re used to the idea of solid walls, and thus never really think of going through them.  Not all Japanese walls are paper, but paper walls are definitely more prevalent in Japan than they are in America, and the guy holding the knife and grinning like a maniac exploited a loophole in our thinking.

He tries to stab Jean in the neck, but the girl pulls Jean out of the way. Frank swings his straight razor up and into the guy’s balls.  I cringe a little.

The look on the fifth guy’s face is priceless.  It’s a mixture of surprise and extreme pain at the sudden and unexpected field castration.

By now the girl has unhooked herself and has pushed the table aside, her face a mask of murderous rage.  Everything stops.  There’s nothing like an angry naked woman to bring things to a standstill.  Disco Man looks her up and down, a leer growing on his face.

“It would have been easier if you had just stayed down,” he says, pulling a tanto out of a hidden sheath in his suit jacket.  The blade is a perfect example of Japanese steel artistry, stunning and austere at the same time.  “Just come quietly and we won’t have to turn this rape into a murder.”  Like a sadistic bastard, he holds his knife out toward her, hoping to terrify her.  It’s not working.

Her right leg, cuff and all, flashes in arc and drops on his wrist.  You can almost hear the bones break and the knife clatters to the floor.  Before he can react, she’s slammed the same foot into his stomach, bending him over.  She plants her foot forward, closing the distance between them, then punches him in the back of the head with the left and uppercuts him in the side of the head with right.  He falls into the table face first, right into a nice piece of
amaebi
.

“Groovy,” Jean says. He’s impressed.

Jacob hands her his jacket. It’s like a tent on her, but she takes it any and smiles a quick “thank you” at him.

The leader is trying to get up now, pulling himself up on the wooden doorframe.  He looks terrified and crazy, cursing in Japanese.  Eve is behind him, taking the time to smooth out her dress.  She has all the time in the world, and she knows it.  She taps him on the shoulder and he turns and looks up at her.  Eve casually grabs the top of his head and his chin and twists his head completely around.  His vertebrae shatter and his muscles and tendons stretch and rip.  He has enough time to look shocked before the signals from his brain stop making it to the rest of his body and he collapses in a heap on the floor.

“Well,” says Jean.  “That just happened.”

“What?” I say, “What just happened?”

I look at the girl, wrapped up in Jacob’s coat, calmly unhooking the cuffs on her wrists and ankles.  She’s about 5’7” or 5’8” and completely unashamed at her lack of clothes.  She’s got the body you would expect of a woman who makes a living being naked: a toned hourglass figure, with a light tan and no tan lines.  Muscles ripple as she moves.  She’s strong – mentally and physically - and her eyes are focused on the task at hand.  “Who are you?” I ask.

“Jessica,” she says, not looking up.

“You’re welcome.” I snarl.  I’m always keyed up after a fight, and grumpy because I don’t know what just happened. And I’m hungry.  And hangry. And fuck everyone.  “What the fuck did those guys want with you?”

“She has a nice rack,” suggests Frank.

“It’s not that great,” says Jean.

Jessica looks up, an eyebrow cocked up.

“They’re nice,” says Eve, “but no one starts a gunfight over breasts.”

“They do in Texas,” I say.

“You know, guys, I’m right here.” Jessica looks around, dropping her wrist cuffs.  She bends over to take the cuffs off her ankles.

“Jacob,” Eve says, “please put your tongue back in your mouth.”

Jessica tosses the cuffs on the floor.  “They grabbed me a few months ago, roughed me up and took pictures of me lying in the gutter all busted up.  They said they were sending the pictures to my dad.  Apparently he knows something they want to know.”

She walks over the guy she lumped and kicks him in the ribs.

“This piece of shit said he’d rape me next time if my dad didn’t get back to them.  I guess tonight was the night they chose.”

“What do they think your dad knows?” Eve asks.

“I have no idea.” Jessica responds.  “They never said, only that if ‘daddy didn’t come through, his little girl was going to get hurt again’.”

She puts her foot on his throat and Eve steps over to gently guide Jessica away before she kills the guy.

“What does your dad do?” Jean asks.

“Not sure.  Something classified.  He’d always say he couldn’t talk about it.  I used to fantasize that he was in the Mob, but he just worked for the Department of Defense.  I found his ID once while he was asleep.  It just had his picture and his clearance level on it.”

“What clearance did he have?” I ask.

She rolls her eyes up like she’s trying to remember something.  “Uh, TS, Q, SCI.  There were others.  I don’t really remember.”

“That’s pretty high clearance, if you’re remembering correctly.”  Jean says.

TS is Top Secret, Q is the DOE version of TS, SCI is Sensitive Compartmented Information.  SCI has been likened to a sort of “above Top Secret,” but that’s really not the case. It’s really more like a specialized layer of security on top of TS or Q. 

“Why do they think he would help them, even with you on the line?” I ask.

“I don’t have a clue.  They never told me anything other than they’d cut me up bit by bit if I talked.”  She shudders a little and gets ready to kick Disco Inferno again.

“Wait.” Eve pulls her back.  “I really want to know what’s going on, and we need him alive to find out what they wanted.”

“What do you mean, you need him alive?” Jessica asks.

Jean’s looking around for unspilled sake.  “It’s hard to torture – sorry, ‘perform an enhanced interrogation’ - on someone who’s dead,” he says.

Jean finds a bottle that still has some sake in it, and pours it into a cup.  He drains the cup and smiles that sad smile that he gets when serious thoughts his big brain.  “Fuck it,” he says.  “Torture requires a living, feeling participant to work.  The more he can feel the better.  For us, anyway.”

“Yep,” Frank quips, looking a bit brighter. Frank’s interest is piqued, as is mine.  “It’s not often you get to find out something that could be really interesting.”

Frank’s a bit of a sociopath, but he’s our sociopath, so it’s fine.

“Where does your dad live?” I ask.

“Albuquerque.  It’s in New Mexico,” she answers.

“Yeah,” Jacob rolls his eyes.  “We know where Albuquerque is.”

“We’re going there tomorrow,” quips Jean.

“At any rate,” Eve looks around, “we had best get out of here, before someone finds all the spilled food, broken walls and dead bodies.  Let’s grab this guy and find out what he knows.”

She’s right.  There’s sushi and rice everywhere. The wall has a missing panel where someone cut through it. The room and hallway are dotted with three unconscious gangsters and a couple of dead guys.  Fortunately, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.  Also, we’ve already paid the bill, so we can sneak out the back and blame it on someone else.

Jessica takes a look around at us, Jean drinking sake, me pacing, Frank wiping his straight razor on someone’s jacket, Eve still standing with a bunch of holes in her dress.  “Who are you people?” she asks.

Jean raises his cup to Jessica and says, “We’re the bad guys.  Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

“I’m still hungry,” Jacob says, rubbing his stomach.

Jessica informs us there’s an In ‘N’ Out Burger a bit north of here that’s probably less busy than the one on Tropicana.